Maker Pi Pico Mini: Simplifying Projects with Raspberry Pi Pico

In this article today, we would like to talk about another interesting Maker Series product, which is the Make Pi Pico Mini. The name may sound familiar to you. Well, indeed it is yes. Do you still remember when we talked about the Maker Pi Pico? If you do, then this product will be interesting to you.

This device is small yet mighty. One of the issues faced with the Maker Pi Pico is that it can't fit into your project, due to its size. So, now we have the Maker Pi Pico Mini. Powered by the same awesome Raspberry Pi Pico/Pico W, it also inherited most of the useful features from its bigger sibling such as GPIO status LEDs, WS2812B Neopixel RGB LED, passive piezo buzzer, and not to forget the user push button and reset button.

Apart from that, the Maker Pi Pico Mini can also be powered by a single-cell Lipo battery, rechargeable via the USB port. And worry not, it comes with an overcharge and over-discharge protection circuit.

Since this comes in a compact size, we removed the Grove connectors and replaced them with our very own Maker Ports. There are 3 Maker Port which comes with the Maker Pi Pico Mini. This Maker Port utilizes the JST-SH 4 ways connectors which are compatible with Sparkfun's Qwiic modules and Adfruit's STEMMA QT modules. Both Qwiic and STEMMA QT are using i2C communications and can be daisy-chained. Moreover, the Maker Port is compatible with Seeed Studio's Grove modules as well. On the other hand, Maker Port does not only support i2C, but also supports UART, Analog Input, and Digital Input/Output.

If you are wondering what language to use to program this board. Well, this board can be programmed with C/C++ (Natively or with Arduino IDE support), MicroPython, or CircuitPython. With massive libraries support and examples especially in Arduino IDE and CircuitPython, you will be ready to build your application in no time, be it for learning purposes or building useful projects.

Below are the features of the board,

• Powered by Raspberry Pi Pico / Pico-W
• Single-cell LiPo connector with overcharge / over-discharge protection circuit, rechargeable via USB.
• 6x Status indicator LEDs for GPIOs
• 1x Passive piezo buzzer (Able to play musical tone or melody)
• 1x Reset button
• 1x User programmable?button
• 1x RGB LEDs (WS2812B Neopixel)
• 3x Maker Ports, compatible with Qwiic, STEMMA QT, and Grove (via conversion cable)
• Support Arduino IDE, CircuitPython and MicroPython
• Dimension: 23.12mm x 53.85mm

Interesting right? Try to get one today.

That's all for today's article. Till we need in our next article.

Thank you.